156 PKOSERPINA. 



or processes, for nourish men t, down through one another, 

 as in Fig. 19. 



4. ISTot that I am yet clear, at all, myself; but I do 

 think it's more the botanists' fault than mine, what c coty- 

 ledonous ' structure there may be at the outer base of each 

 successive bud ; and still less, how the inter venient length 

 of stem, in the bicots, is related to therr power, or law, of 

 branching. For not only the two-leaved tree is outlaid, 

 and the one-leaved inlaid, but the two-leaved tree is 

 branched, and the one-leaved tree is not branched. This 

 is a most vital and important distinction, which I state to 

 you in very bold terms, for though there are some appar- 

 ent exceptions to the law, there are, I believe, no real 

 ones, if we define a branch rightly. Thus, the head of a 

 palm tree is merely a cluster of large leaves ; and the 

 spike of a grass, a clustered blossom. The stein, in both, 

 is un branched ; and we should be able in this respect to 

 classify plants very simply indeed, but for a provoking 

 species of intermediate creatures whose branching is 

 always in the manner of corals, or sponges, or arborescent 

 minerals, irregular and accidental, and essentially, there- 

 fore, distinguished from the systematic anatomy of a truly 

 branched tree. Of these presently ; we must go on by 

 very short steps : and I find no step can be taken without 

 check from existing generalizations. Sowerby- s definition 

 of Monocotyledons, in his ninth volume, begins thus : 

 " Herbs, (or rarely, and only in exotic genera,) trees, in 

 which the wood, pith, and bark are indistinguishable." 



